


filling the table

by hydrospanners



Series: renegade [9]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Balmorra, During Class Story, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 21:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15894690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: They have a saying back on Corellia that the only way you can ever really know a man is by taking his credits. They also have a saying that you should never play cards with a Corellian because Corellians always cheat, but she's betting Doc never heard that one.





	filling the table

 

> _Filling the table: In some rare occasions, a round of pazaak could be won if a player could place 9 cards on the table without busting._

 

It’s well after lights out when Rea wanders into the mess, her fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm against her thighs. The base is like a graveyard at this hour, dark as a black hole and damn near as quiet. With the generators offline for the night, there’s no sound but the distant echo of blaster fire and the rumble of answering explosives. It’s fucking unsettling. She’s too used to the not-quite-quiet of ships and stations and cities. Too used to the hum and tick of machinery, to the murmur of distant voices, to the sounds of life.

 

This quiet makes her skin crawl. It’s got her itching to go somewhere, to do something, but there’s nowhere to go and nothing useful to do. Not at night. The Imps have eyes everywhere on this planet. Too much movement, the slightest pinprick of light… The last thing Rea needs is to draw an air raid down on the only people who can get her that stupid fucking prototype.

 

At this hour, after a day like this one, she’s expecting to find the mess empty. She figures the Resistance will be tucked away in their drab little cots, dreaming of better days. When she spots the figure settled at a table in the center of the room, she almost turns around and walks right back out--she’s not really in the mood for another lecture on duty and ethics and the moral bankruptcy of the Republic--but then she sees the outline of a familiar mustache in the dim glow of a datapad screen.

 

That changes things.

 

Rea finds herself smiling as she settles onto the bench across from the doctor, pushing away the empty packets of energy pudding he seems to be eating direct from the wrapper. She’s never minded much about the taste of her food, but even her stomach protests the thought of that. Poor bastard needs it, though. She hasn’t seen him since their meeting with Warren, but the dark circles under his eyes tell her he’s been keeping himself entertained. No shortage of work for a doctor in a combat zone.

 

At least one of them has something to do.

 

“Long night, Doc?”

 

“Is it night?” He asks, looking up from his datapad to toss her a tired smile. He starts to turn back to whatever he’s reading when he freezes, looking at her again like he’s just realized she’s there. His whole demeanour shifts to something more open and relaxed. “Time really flies when you’re having fun, Gorgeous, and we had a lot of fun today.”

 

“Don’t know a lot of people who think of ‘exit, pursued by colicoid’ as a good time.”

 

“Anything’s a good time when you’re in good company,” he says, waggling his eyebrows in a way that would be ridiculous on anyone else. Actually, it’s ridiculous on him too, but ridiculous works for Doc.

 

“Smooth,” Rea laughs, then gestures at the datapad in his hand. “Not interrupting, am I?”

 

Doc drops the datapad like a hot rock. “What could be more important than talking to a beautiful woman?”

 

 _So predictable._ Rea tries not to smile too much as she whips out a deck of cards from her belt pouch and starts to shuffle. His eyes follow the movement of her finely-sculpted arms with open appreciation. “You ever play pazaak?” She asks.

 

“My gran used to make me play with her. Hosted a game twice a week. She liked to sneak brandy in her tea and make me listen to her friends go on about how great things were before the Mandalorian Wars. Which, coincidentally,” Doc draws his attention away from her exquisite musculature to give her a significant look, “is the last time anyone under eighty played pazaak.”

 

He’s been teasing her about her ‘advanced age’ ever since Kira mentioned, absolutely deliberately, that Rea’s a year older than him. The difference can’t be more than a few months, but that hasn’t stopped the torrent of old lady jokes she’s been taking from both of them all day.

 

She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t bother arguing. “You a betting man, Doc?”

 

“Only when I gamble,” he says. “You?”

 

"I'm Corellian," Rea grins. "What do you think?"

 

Four hands later, she’s fifty credits richer and Doc is rooting around in his pocket for something to scribble another IOU on. She knows he’ll never make good on it, but Rea’s happy to accept his empty promises if it keeps him playing the game. She’s overdue for a bit of fun.

 

Doc watches her curiously as she deals the fifth hand. “So where’d you learn to play? You can tell me they teach pazaak in Jedi school, but I’m not gonna believe you.”

 

Rea shoots him an amused look. “Jedi school?”

 

“Gotta learn Jedi stuff somewhere, don’t you?”

 

She almost wishes Rhese was here, if only to see the shade of violet he’d turn at hearing a decade’s worth of finely-honed skills reduced to ‘Jedi stuff’. “Afraid you’re asking the wrong Jedi. I never went to school.” Even if she had, she wouldn’t have lasted long. Rea’s always had a complicated relationship with structure. And rules.

 

“You never went to school?” He gives her a piercing look that quickly shifts from skeptical to horrified when she shakes her head. “ _Any_ school? Not even before the Jedi?”

 

“Not all of us can be delicate Core flowers, Doc.”

 

Doc raises a brow. “Core flower, huh? You been checking up on me, Gorgeous?”

 

She can almost hear Ranna in the back of her mind, giving her that old familiar warning. _Everyone will betray you if you give them the chance_ . She used to worry so much about Rea, about how freely she talked and how careless she was about who listened. She was always warning her to watch her back and keep her mouth shut. Always smiling that bittersweet smile, telling her ‘ _you can’t trust anything in this life but family, Turhaya.’_

 

She’d been wrong about that, of course. You can’t trust family either.

 

“I know money when I see it,” Rea tells him, which is true. She learned to read a mark before she learned to read her own name. She doesn’t mention she’s also had Teeseven mining the holonet for information about him since they got back to base. He hasn’t found much so far--a birth certificate, transcripts, a few publications in medical journals--and she can’t decide if that’s promising or alarming. People with posh backgrounds like Doc’s aren’t usually so mysterious.

 

He snorts. “Glamorous as it is, working for the Resistance doesn’t actually pay that well.”

 

She’d be surprised if it paid at all. “Lucky you’ve got that trust fund for hard times.”

 

His brow sails nearly up into his hairline. He seems more impressed than angry, which is encouraging for the plans Rea hadn’t realized she was forming until just now. “You really have been checking up on me.”

 

“Just a guess actually,” she grins, “but thanks for confirming. I’ll remember that when it’s time to call these in.” She gestures to the half-dozen IOUs in the pot.

 

“And what else have you ‘just guessed’ about me?”

 

“Well…” Rea folds her arms over her cards, leaning forward on her elbows. “Aside from how much you like to talk about yourself--”

 

“There’s a lot to say.”

 

“--you’re from the Core, but I’m guessing somewhere more focused on creds and culture than politics. Somewhere on the Perlemian, probably. How am I doing?”

 

“Ralltiir,” he confirms. “And I’m halfway to impressed. What else?”

 

“You’re good and you know it, so you’d only have gone to a good school. Coruscant probably, cause it’s the best of the best, and you took to medicine like light to a black hole. You had to be talented to finish school early even after blowing all that time in the underbelly of Galactic City. I’m guessing that’s where you got the notion to do this--” she gestures to the darkened Resistance base around them “--with all that fancy education of yours.”

 

The shrewd look he gives her tells her she hit the nail right on the head. She resists the urge to high five herself. “Are you fucking with me, Gorgeous? Or were all those banthashit stories about Jedi reading minds actually true?”

 

Rea laughs. “I’m no mind-reader, Doc. Not saying it can’t be done--Force shit’s weird--but it’s not my kinda Force shit. All I ever learned were the punching bits.”

 

Doc’s expression says he doesn’t quite believe her, but he doesn’t push. Rea starts to suspect he might actually be as smart as he thinks he is. “So if it’s not a Force trick, where’d you learn it?”

 

She shrugs. “Wasn’t always a Jedi.”

 

“Don’t they pluck you people straight from the cradle?”

 

“They made an exception for me. Not even the Jedi could resist all this.” Rea grins, gesturing to herself with a careless sweep of her hands as she leans back to give Doc a better view of everything the Jedi couldn’t resist. He accepts the invitation eagerly, eyes roving every inch of her he can see in the dark.

 

“Can’t say I blame ‘em, Beautiful.”

 

Rea smirks, pleased by the hungry way he’s looking at her. Every nerve ending in her body is sparking to life, tingling with anticipation. She hasn’t had a chance like this in weeks, and now that there’s a familiar, delicious heat starting to build inside her, Rea’s skin is practically itching with impatience. She’s never been shy about chasing what she wants, but she forgot how good it feels to have what she wants chasing _her_.

 

How many hours did you have to know someone before you could ask them to fuck you on a table?

 

She opens her mouth to ask Doc for his opinion, but two sharp beeps from her holocomm kill the words on her tongue. Warren’s ID flashes red across the screen.

 

The heat in her veins couldn’t have vanished faster if she was streaking through a blizzard on Hoth.

 

“You should get some rest,” Rea sighs, sweeping the pazaak cards into her palm in one smooth motion. “I’ve got a feeling I’ll be collecting on those IOUs sooner than later.” _And not in the way I wanted_ , she thinks dismally.

 

But maybe there’ll be a chance for that later.

 

If she’s very lucky, and if she does her job very well, then maybe they’ll both make it out of this thing alive. Maybe Balmorra will be more-or-less in one piece. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll have time before the next crisis to show the doctor everything she had planned for that table.


End file.
